Page 32 of Little Shattered Dreams

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Where were you, anyway?” Simone asked.

“Talking to Karl. It went a bit longer than I thought it would. I have a lot to tell you both about the sessions he had with Quinn before she died.”

Simone rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, I can’t wait. Our place or yours?”

“Mine, but there’s something you should know first.” I pulled the note out of my pocket and opened it, turning it toward them so they could read it.

“This was waiting for me on my door when I returned to my place a few minutes ago,” I said. “I’m being watched, and someone wants me to know it. If you’re with me, I’m guessing you’re being watched as well.”

Simone moved a hand to her hip. “Good. Let him look. Let him take a good, long look at the ladies getting ready to take him down.”

CHAPTER15

I filled Simone and Hunter in on my visit with Karl and asked them to update me on how they’d spent their morning. Simone had sat down with Rebecca and Kelly, who worked at the spa. She learned Quinn had been in for a treatment on the day she died, right before dinner. That meant she hadn’t gone straight from her session to talk to her daughter, as Karl had suggested. Rebecca said Quinn seemed uptight and didn’t say much, unlike her visit to the spa the day before when she’d been a chatterbox.

My next assignment for Simone was to go over the security footage that had been recorded the day of Quinn’s death. She headed for Grace’s office to do just that, and I turned my attention to Hunter. She’d just begun looking into the employees’ backgrounds and had discovered something interesting about Calvin, the security guard. He’d served time in jail for battery. A month after his release, he started working at the retreat.

I asked Hunter to continue to investigate the other employees and then to focus on Quinn herself. The mysterious incident in her life, the one that had caused her the most pain, was of particular interest. Maybe if we did enough digging, we’d discover her secret.

As my partners in crime started on their assignments, I made my way to the front of the property, where I found Calvin sitting inside the security room, his feet kicked up over a metal desk. I guessed he was about a decade younger than me, in his mid-thirties.

Calvin had his nose stuck in a book when I approached and seemed too preoccupied to notice me standing there, waiting. I knocked on the plexiglass window and he shot up, startled to see me. I smiled and gave him a slight wave. He snapped the book closed, tossing it onto the cluttered shelf behind him.

He opened the door, looked down at me, and said, “Guests aren't ’posed to wander this far away from the main area. What are you doing down here?”

“I believe you know why I’m here. Grace spoke to you, right?”

“Yeah, she did. I already told her what I know. Guess I just don’t understand why you need to talk to me too.”

I pointed at the book. “Do you always use a playing card as a bookmark?”

“Sometimes. Why?”

“A few playing cards were found around Quinn’s place.”

“What about it?”

“Just an observation.”

“You sure? Seems like it’s more than that.”

“Is your playing-card bookmark part of a deck of cards?”

“It was until I lost some of the cards.”

“How did you lose them?” I asked.

“I left them sitting on the table on my back deck and went inside to grab a beer. When I came back, a bunch of them had blown away. Found some of them but not all.”

“When did this happen?”

“Sunday night.”

“LastSunday night, as in three days ago?”

“Yep.”

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